The present application is directed to a meat mallet for use in tenderizing and flattening meat during preliminary processing prior to cooking and consumption, and in particular to such a meat mallet having a head having a number of interchangeable and nestable face plates with a plurality of mini-tenderizing or flattening surfaces of varying sizes and shapes depending on type and quality of the meat.
Meat hammer-type mallets have been used for many years to tenderize and flatten various raw meats such as pork, beef and chicken prior to cooking and consumption. Meat mallets are especially ideal for meats having an excessive amount of connective tissue or that are otherwise not of ideal or desired tenderness. Meat mallets have evolved over the years with early meat mallets configured similar to traditional hammers with a handle that is attached to a head having a fixed face or two fixed faces on either end. One such mallet even had three fixed faces each with a different surface. While such fixed faced meat mallets are capable of tenderizing or flattening a particular type of meat, such are typically not suited for a wide variety of jobs and may be quite inefficient for certain purposes.
It has been found that equipping the face of the head with small projections, especially pointed projections, to pierce the surface of the meat, certain types of meat can be tenderized in less time. Therefore, meat mallets have used outwardly projecting points to assist in tenderizing the meat. However, a single face with one configuration of sharp projections, or one with simply a flat face, is incompatible with the many types and qualities of meats. Consequently, the tenderization and flattening process is more effective when a good selection of different heads with projections of various sizes and shapes can be employed depending on the type of meat.
In order to provide numerous heads, the prior art requires numerous mallets with many fixed heads that take up substantial counter and storage space. Prior art devices have provided a series of meat mallets whereby the user can choose the appropriate mallet from a number of mallets. However, users desire simplicity and efficiency and a single efficient mallet rather than a number of mallets. As noted above, other prior art has equipped meat mallets with a plurality of faces, such as a front and rear face, each with projections of different shapes and sizes for different types of meat. However, this approach has also been deficient as the heads are fixed and more than two or three types of heads are required to provide for the range required by many cooks.